Broody
by skele-smol
Summary: This was not how Violet expected to spend her morning. Loping through the forest, trying desperately to keep up and keep sight of the fluffy ass of an escaped chicken.


**Broody.**

"Shit!"

This was not how Violet expected to spend her morning. Loping through the forest, trying desperately to keep up and keep sight of the fluffy ass of an escaped chicken. Ducking and weaving the nobbled reach of birch and oak, snatching at her hair and clawing at her cheek, and rudely tripping her with their half-buried roots. It was supposed to be a simple enough job. Just open the coop and collect the eggs. Preferably while keeping _all _the hens in the run.

Clearly, this particular chicken had other plans for her, it seemed. The tiny raptor was crafty and speedy, and easily lead Violet on a merry chase deeper through bramble and brush, cackling its head off in triumph of its escape.

Lungs burning and legs throbbing, Violet forced herself to keep running. In her mind's eye she could already see the disapproving expression that Clementine would be wearing upon her return. Racing off into the forest alone after a single chicken was foolish, of course she knew that. But Violet also knew that Clementine would be disappointed if the hen was simply left to become a tasty snack for any predator lurking in the forest. Their livestock numbers were still woefully low and losing a chicken, especially a productive layer, would cripple their food stocks.

"Shit-sticks!" Violet grumbled as she over shot the wily hen's sharp turn. She planted her lead foot hard into the forest floor, her momentum sending up a little geyser of dirt and pebble as she skidded around and took off once more. "I swear, the _instant _you stop laying I'm gonna-"

Violet's irritated tirade died in her throat at the sound of a guttural gurgling. Her eyes widening as she stumbled to a stop and ducked behind a tree. There, less than ten feet ahead, was half a walker. Sprawled flat with its teeth snapping through bone and ragged lips smacking as it chewed on something small and fluffy caged within clawed fingers. Just ahead, the runaway hen wheeled around and charged at the rotting thing. Squawking and flapping her outrage, a feather storm of fury. Her talons raking at the foul creatures dragging intestines and bloated guts before dancing back out of reach of swinging hands.

Violet took a breath to calm her nerves and clear her thoughts. Instinctively reaching to her belt loop for the cold steel of her cleaver that rarely left her person... only for her fingers to meet with nothing but worn denim. She groaned her frustration. Of course she was unarmed. Why would she be when she was simply tasked with collecting the morning's eggs? She hadn't expected to end up romping through the forest after a fugitive fowl.

She sighed and made to move away and head back to the school. Simply herding a single chicken back without incident was one thing, she'd be able to justify her actions for roaming the forest alone then. But she'd not be able to justify taking on a walker unarmed and without backup, even if it was just a dragger. And it was not something that she'd care to even attempt to justify to her furious girlfriend should she return covered in blood and gore or worse, got herself bit, all for the sake of a single bird.

It was then, as she turned away from the hissing hen and snarling undead corpse that Violet felt herself freeze, her feet rooting her to the spot and refusing to let her budge. High pitched pips and peeps eddied from the overgrown bank. Sucking her next breath through her teeth, Violet hesitated for a moment, before she sighed, whirled around and dashed toward the walker in time to see its gnarled fingers latch onto the hens tail feathers and drag her closer toward its gaping maw. The brave hen panicked then. Loud, long and unending squawks of distress warbled as she beat her wings furiously about the rotting creatures head in effort to surprise it into dropping her.

Violet lunged. One boot slamming down and pinning the withered limb that clutched the bird as she raised her other high and stomped with all her might. She heard the enraged and garbled hiss of the walker, felt the connection of her heel meeting the back of its skull where the crumbling bone resisted her just long enough for panic to bloom in her chest before the decaying structure yielded.

Violet felt the bile scorch up her throat and blister at the back of her tongue as rancid gray matter and thick oozing blood splattered almost thigh high on her pants. The hen, bobbing her head toward her rescuer, trilled. Almost as though she were expressing her gratitude before she clucked lowly at an opening to a small burrow, hidden by the tangled overgrowth and the now fully dead corpse. Violet frowned in confusion for a moment before the same high pitched pips and peeps that she had heard before drifted from the hole.

"What the?" Kicking the body aside and doing her best to ignore the stench of rot, Violet dropped to her belly and reached her arm into the hole. Her eyes widened in shock when her fingertips brushed against something warm, downy and alive. "You gotta be shitting me."

* * *

Clementine was now frantic. No one had seen Violet in several hours and she wasn't squirreled away in any of her usual haunts. The perimeter wall was bare. The chicken coop was empty, save for the four remaining hens and the rag lined bowl that Violet had taken to carry the collected eggs in. No one had seen her leave the grounds but the only place left to check was out there, in the forest. And Clementine _knew _Violet was unarmed, her bow was still propped at the base of the watchtower, ready for her shift and her cleaver was still up in their room.

Louis and AJ, their expressions determined, were almost ready arming themselves to go and search the woodlands beyond their walls and bring their friend home, when Willy's voice -cracking with the onset of puberty- rang across the courtyard.

"Yo! Clem! It's Violet! She's back!"

Clementine whirled herself around in time to watch the gate creak open as the blonde, with a damned chicken tucked under her arm, slipped inside, looking none the worse for her romp in the wilds. She even had the audacity to throw a glare up at the young teen on watch as she passed him.

Hauling herself across the courtyard as quickly as she could without stumbling on her crutches, Clementine damned near threw herself at her lover. Letting the walking aides clatter, forgotten and ignored, to the ground as she threw her arms around the slender young woman. Pointedly dismissing the indignant squawks of fowl and female alike.

"Clem? Whu-?" Violet found her words muffled as Clementine crushed their lips together, kissing her hard and deep as though she might never have the chance to kiss her again. And when it finally ended, with Violet left bewildered and breathless, Clementine delivered a sharp swat to her shoulder. "Ow! Uh, hi?"

"Don't you "hi" me, Violet!" Clementine warned darkly, pinning her with a scowl that would easily had her balls crawling back inside her, if Violet had any. "Where the hell have you been?! You scared the absolute shit out of me!"

Violet lowered her gaze and nodded to the hen still tucked under her arm, perfectly content and almost purring in that weird chickeny way. "I'm sorry Clem. Had a bit of trouble with an escapee. Bolted out into the forest, so I went after her."

"You went after a single chicken on your own?" Clementine's scowl softened into a single raised brow, her honey-gold gaze shifting slowly from Violet's face to the creature, either ignorant or oblivious for all the trouble she had caused. "That one's been getting out a lot lately. Found a broken area in the coop's fence when we went looking for you. She's not been laying either."

Violet's eyes danced with barely restrained excitement as she met and held Clementine's gaze.

"Yeah, there's a reason for that." She gestured for Louis and AJ to step closer. "AJ, grab Clem's crutches for her please? Then I need you cup your hands and hold them out for me." She then turned to Louis, who was genuinely startled to have the hen bundled into his arms. "Here Lou. Hold her for a sec, will ya?"

Taking the crutches from her boy and tucking them neatly under her arms, Clementine blinked her confusion at Violet's strange instructions. "Vi?"

However, AJ took them in his stride. Standing there patiently with his cupped hands held out as he was told to do. Violet carefully reached into the soft pocket of her hoodie, drawing out a single fluffy yellow chick and gingerly placing it into the boys waiting palms. It's dark eyes fixed on the boys face as it fluffed up its fuzzy feathers and pipped in its high little voice, only settling when the mother hen in Louis's grasp trilled soothing sounds to it. AJ's eyes went wide and he smiled a gap-toothed grin of pure delight. "Oh, wow. Clem! It's a baby."

"Well, actually..." And this time Violet reached into both pockets, revealing a second and third chick who joined the first one placed in AJ's hands. They immediately snuggled down against his flesh, pleased with his warmth and pipped softly, quietly. Violet then returned her hand to her pocket for a third and final time, to bring out the last baby though, this one, Violet held onto herself. Her slender fingers curling protectively around the fuzzy little thing. "There were five, but a walker got to one of them before I could kill it."

Clementine's gut clenched at the mention of a walker. The warmth that had softened her eyes with the revelation of the chicks fled and she felt her throat tighten around a frustrated grumble. But before she could speak, AJ jumped in, steering the conversation to something less harrowing. "We gotta name them!"

"Sounds like a plan, little man." Violet smiled, completely enthralled by the fluffy tiny little thing in her hands. Her fingertip gently brushing against the chicks tiny beak as she cooed at it softly which it returned as a series of grumpy peeps and flapped its tiny little wing stumps in a temper. "This little guy looks like a nugget to me."

Clementine couldn't help but choke on the snort of laughter that bubbled out of her throat and tickled through her nose. She also couldn't help the slight coughing fit and watering eyes that followed on the heels of her laughter. "Please Vi," She rasped, as Louis carefully rubbed her back in soothing circles with his free hand until the coughing fit passed. "Please don't call it that."

Violet rolled her eyes and sighed. "Fine..." A mischievous smirk curled at her lips as she declared firmly. "Goujon it is then."


End file.
